


It Began With a Christmas Card

by MiladyDragon



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Christmas, Christmas Cards, Community: torchwood_fest, Gen, Mild Language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-24
Updated: 2018-12-24
Packaged: 2019-09-26 15:30:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17144351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MiladyDragon/pseuds/MiladyDragon
Summary: For Detective Inspector Kathy Swanson, it began with a Christmas Card





	It Began With a Christmas Card

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this for Torchwood Fest, based on a prompt by badly_knitted: “The team get inundated with Christmas cards from the grateful citizens of Cardiff after saving the day.” Bonus: Kathy Swanson and Andy Davidson.
> 
> This doesn't follow any of my universes, except that Kathy in this one thinks that Toshiko is cute. She's not wrong. 
> 
> Just a warning: there is a small mention of holiday-related depression causing people to harm themselves. It's there because it's something the police sometimes need to deal with over Christmas.

 

 

It began with a Christmas card.

Detective Inspector Kathy Swanson had seen a lot of shit in her time with the Cardiff CID, most of that because of Torchwood.  But this…yes, it was because of Torchwood, and yet she couldn’t help but be touched.

Well, not at first, though.

In the beginning, she thought the whole thing was just a massive pain in the arse.

“Boss?”

Kathy glanced up from the mound of paperwork that threatened to overtake her desk.  She’d been thinking about dumping it all in the rubbish bin and lighting it on fire, but gave up that idea for a lost cause.  It would all just come back to haunt her again at some point.

PC Andy Davidson had stuck his head into her open door.  He looked as chipper as always, so it couldn’t have been the city burning down or Torchwood wreaking havoc again.  “Yes?”

“There’s a family wanting to speak to whoever’s in charge.  That’s you, at the moment…”  Davidson was apologetic, but then Kathy did have a certain reputation for being hard on time-wasters. 

She played with the idea of pretending she wasn’t there and letting the desk sergeant deal with it, but anything to get her away from her overloaded desk for just a short time… “No problem.  I’ll talk to them.”

The smile Davidson gave her was grateful.  “I’ll show them in – “

“No, I’ll come out there.” She’d been sitting for ages, and stretching her legs sounded like an excellent idea.  After she was done with their visitors, she’d go and get a cup of coffee from the place down the road…even though it had snowed last night.  By now, the sidewalks would be clear. 

Yep, her back creaked alarmingly as she got to her feet.  Davidson, despite being a sarcastic bastard who was always quick with a comment, didn’t say a thing.  Which just proved that he had good survival instincts.

The people wanting to speak to her were seated in the uncomfortable chairs by the sergeant’s desk, and they all stood as she approached.  It was a man, a woman who was obviously his wife, and two of the cutest, tow-headed children Kathy had ever seen.  One of the children, who looked to be about five, backed up a little in order to hide behind her Mam’s legs, peering up at Kathy with huge, blue eyes.  The other, a boy she thought must have been about eight, didn’t move, his Tad’s hand on his shoulder, as if anchoring him in place.  The man’s arm was in a sling, and the woman seemed to be concerned for him, and yet she didn’t coddle him in any way.  She had a red envelope in her hand, and it was obvious it was a Christmas card.

“I’m Detective Inspector Swanson,” Kathy introduced herself politely.  “I’m ranking officer on duty at the moment.  How can I help you?”

“I’m Eion Jeffries,” the man said, “this is my wife, Amy; and our children, Drew and Ceri.  Thank you for seeing us.”  He was pale, and Kathy wondered just what had caused the injury to his arm.

He squeezed the boy’s shoulder, and Drew stepped up, gazing at Kathy as if daring her to say something about him being a kid.  “We didn’t know where else to come, ‘cause we figured the police know all about Torchwood.”

Kathy stifled a sigh.  “What have they done now?”  There really was no telling.  Torchwood ran roughshod all over the city, and she was used to putting out fires.  About the only one who was nice about it was that handsome Mr Jones but, at times, Kathy got the distinct impression that she was being _handled_ in a way which, to her surprise, she couldn’t find objection with.  Just because he was so bloody nice about it.

Drew thrust out his chin almost belligerently.  “They saved my Tad’s life when he was on his way home from work last week!”

He was angry on Torchwood’s behalf, which surprised Kathy so much she couldn’t respond.  The boy’s mother chastised him for speaking rudely to the nice police officer, and Drew subsided, but he was obviously not happy about it.

“But she didn’t sound very nice.”  It wasn’t Drew this time; it was little Ceri, coming out from behind her Mum, her little fists clenched as she glared up at Kathy with all the fury of a child who was seeing a grave misjustice.

Honestly, no one had ever come in to _defend_ Torchwood before, so Kathy felt like she could be excused by her – admittedly – rude tone.  “I’m sorry, but you just surprised me.  What makes you think we know Torchwood?” She did, but she was curious to know why these children had thought to come to the Heddlu for this.

“Cause they’re the good guys,” Drew answered.  “And the police are good guys, too. So you _have_ to know who they are!”

Alright, Kathy had to admit…Torchwood did do good work.  They’d really stepped up when terrorists had blown up large chunks of the city, not that long ago.  But they didn’t have to be such twats about things. 

Well, Mr Jones wasn’t a twat.  He was nice and friendly and made the best coffee _ever_.

“We didn’t know how to find them,” Eion went on.  “I mean, we know all about them being down near the bay, but there’s no way to know exactly where to go to contact them.”

“We want to give them this.”  Amy Jeffries held out the bright red envelope, and Kathy took it, surprised.  “We figure they have a pretty thankless job, and just wanted to bring a little Christmas cheer to them.”

“Can you get the card to them?” Ceri asked.  She had the most lethal set of puppy eyes Kathy had ever seen in her life.

There was only one thing she could do.

“Of course I’ll make sure Torchwood gets this,” she promised.

That earned her two beaming children and two thankful parents.

 

**********

 

To be honest, Kathy almost forgot about the Christmas card in the drawer where she’d stored it.  Christmas was a pretty busy time of year in Cardiff, what with the rise in shoplifting and petty crimes, as well as those poor sods who couldn’t handle the holiday and decided to take themselves out of it.  Those cases were the ones that bothered Kathy the most, because she couldn’t imagine things could ever be so bad that suicide was an option.

At least it wasn’t like London.  Chaos always seemed to land itself on that particular city nearly every Christmas.

A week before Christmas, she was coming back to headquarters, when she caught the sound of an argument out in the front.  Curious, she made her way toward it, suddenly catching the word, “Torchwood,” amid the hissed conversation.

There were two University-aged girls cornering one of the poor kids that passed for trainees, and the PC’s eyes were wide with the whites showing as the two students – one an obvious Goth, dressed all in black with some of the heaviest eyeshadow Kathy had ever seen, and the other more conservatively dressed in jeans and a heavy coat – kept haranguing the boy.

“Excuse me,” Kathy butted in before the PC actually passed out, “but can I help you?” She identified herself to the pair.

The Goth girl rolled her eyes.  “Thank god someone with some brains is here.”

“Desi,” the other girl elbowed her companion, “be nice.”

“You were yelling just as much as I was,” Desi pointed out.

“True, but you know how hard it is for a woman to reach the rank DI Swanson has, so show some respect, okay?”

“Yeah, yeah.”  Desi didn’t look pleased by her friend’s words, but she subsided into a somewhat sullen silence.

“I’m Chelsea,” the girl introduced herself, “and this is my best friend, Desi.”

Desi waved a hand in greeting. 

“You _can_ help us, actually,” Chelsea went on.  “We were looking for Torchwood, and it’s too cold to go down to the Quay and hang out until something happens to give us a clue where to look.”

Oh god, no.

Something of her irritation must have communicated itself to the two students, because Desi snapped, “Look, we know Torchwood can be a bunch of rude bastards, but they save this city more than any of us know.  Which is why we wanted to get them this.”

She pushed a rather large shopping bag into Kathy’s hands.  Glancing inside, she saw brightly coloured envelopes in neat stacks.  If Kathy had to guess, she thought there had to be about a hundred of them.

“Torchwood did a lot of work out at Cardiff University after the terrorist attack,” Chelsea explained.  “These we collected from students who wanted to make sure their work was appreciated.”  She blushed a little.  “There’s that really cute Japanese woman…I really wanted to make sure she got this.”  A small box came out of the girl’s coat pocket.  “It’s not much, but she really helped out with the computers, and it meant we were able to get back to normal pretty quickly. I…lost a really important research paper that she was able to recover.”

“And Chelsea has a crush,” Desi teased.

“I do not!” she denied hotly, her face going redder.

Yeah, Chelsea really did have a crush.  Not that Kathy could blame her; Toshiko Sato really _was_ cute. 

Not that she noticed.

Nope, not at all.

Kathy accepted the little box, giving Chelsea a sympathetic smile.  The student must have understood, because she brightened considerably. 

“Can you make sure those get to where they need to go?” Desi asked, her own pale face hopeful.

It was then that Kathy recalled the lone Christmas card in her desk drawer.  “I’ll get them out to Torchwood as soon as I can.”

“Before Christmas?” Chelsea confirmed.

“Before Christmas,” Kathy said.

She had a week, that would give her plenty of time.

 

**********

 

After that, it was as if word had gotten around that it was fine for everyone to give their Torchwood bound Christmas cards to any and all coppers they happened to run into.  Kathy had never seen the like before.  She had stacks and stacks of cards and letters in her office, and after the last bagful of mail arrived – from primary school students who’d handmade their offerings using glitter that seemed to get _everywhere_ – Kathy decided it was time to beard Torchwood with their mail.  After all, the CID wasn’t the bloody post office, and all that mess shouldn’t be taking up all that room in the corner, looming like a…well, a Christmas-coloured looming thing. 

So, she put in a call to that nice Mr Jones, and arranged to meet him for lunch.

Honestly, if the man hadn’t already been taken by Captain Harkness, she might have made a play herself.

Or, if she didn’t have her own little crush on that cute computer expert of theirs.

Kathy had Davidson accompany her, because by that point – two days before Christmas – the mail had gotten severely out of control and she needed the extra hands. 

“Why don’t the citizens of Cardiff ever send the police Christmas cards?” he groused as he helped her lug the bags and boxes into the pub Mr Jones had arranged to meet them at.

That was a very good question, and Kathy thought it had more to do with just how flashy Torchwood was, that their saving the city was far more obvious than the simple coppers who walked the beat, protecting the public.  The police deserved some love, too, but at the same time Kathy wasn’t about to deny that Torchwood had saved the entire city several times from threats the police just weren’t prepared to fight.  She still remembered the slaughter of the CID’s ranking officers in that terrorist attack; she was about the only one except for Davidson – and she really needed to push through those promotion papers for him – who truly understood that it had been aliens who’d done the killings.  It was a scary thought, and she was quite prepared to leave Torchwood to it.

Still, that didn’t quite excuse their behaviour.  Well, Captain Harkness’ behaviour.  Cooper was almost as bad, and don’t get her started on Harper…

But Jones was fine.  She actually hadn’t spoken to Sato enough to get a read on her character.

Not that she wouldn’t like to. 

Alright…Kathy was attracted.  Which didn’t make sense, since she didn’t know the other woman at all, except that she was attractive and apparently very smart.

Kathy’s specific type of woman had always been one with both looks _and_ brains.

Stop it.

Jones was waiting for them when they entered the pub.  He stood, surprise written all over his handsome features, and he moved to help with the boxes once that surprise let him to do.  Which was pretty quickly, but then he would have to have excellent reflexes working for Torchwood.

Kathy could admit that he was also very good looking.  She’d always liked both men and women, but once again Jones was already taken.

“Is there a reason you’re carrying all of this?” he asked politely. 

Kathy was impressed that he was managing that tone after the astonishment he had to have been experiencing when she and Davidson had brought all that mail in.  His curiosity had to have been out of control.  Unless working for Torchwood meant there wasn’t a lot that _could_ surprise him anymore.

They stacked everything up on the table that Jones had been using, careful not to knock the pint he’d been working on over and spilling the man’s beer.  He was wearing one of his usual impeccable suits, this one a dark blue with a lighter blue shirt, the tie matching the suit but with silver stripes.  His coat had been tossed across the back of the booth, and he stood there, staring at the boxes and bags that were taking up almost every bit of space there was.

“These,” Kathy made a grand gesture, “are all for Torchwood.”

A single eyebrow went up.  “Is this about a new case?”

“Nope,” Davidson answered.  “They’re Christmas cards.”

Jones seemed a little speechless at that.

Kathy explained, going back to the first card that had come through the doors of the CID.  She recounted the Uni students, and then every single story she had about the receipt of the cards from the bobbies on the beat who’d been practically forced to collect them. 

By the end of her recital, Jones appeared very touched by what the citizens of Cardiff had done.  “That…” he swallowed. 

“I know,” Kathy said, without needing to hear what he wanted to say.  “I’ll be honest: I thought that first time they were coming in to complain about you lot.”

“That’s not a surprise, Detective Inspector,” Jones answered dryly.  “We do have a tendency to be a bit heavy-handed in our dealings with civilians.”

 _That_ was an understatement, but Kathy didn’t say it out loud.

“But this…this is completely unexpected.”

Jones was in obvious awe of it all.  Kathy approved of that human emotion.

“Oh, and then there’s this.”  She pulled the tiny box from Chelsea out of her pocket, explaining what it was and who it needed to go to.

Jones accepted it, slipping it into his trouser pocket.  “I’ll make certain Toshiko receives it.”

“Good.  Now, how about we take all this out to your car, and then we can grab some lunch.  I don’t know about you, but delivering Christmas cheer gives me an appetite.”

Jones laughed.  Kathy considered that a win.

Now, all she needed to do was find a way to get Toshiko’s phone number…

 

 

_Fin_

 

 


End file.
